I get a call from my agent Friday while I'm out. I can barely hear her on the phone because I'm waiting for my coffee and some guy next to me is playing Christina Aguilera out of his bluetooth speaker. What I do make out from the conversation is that she wants me to come in for a voice audition for an Amex commercial. National. Big bucks.

The next day I wake up with a cold.

Perfect.

I do three shows that night and bomb 2 out of 3 because my nose keeps running on stage. Every punchline is dampened with a hefty sniff. My final show at 10:30 is possible one of the worst I've ever had to host.

A slew of drunken bro's from Staten Island who are there to see their friend decided they will not only not laugh at anyone on stage, but heckle every other act before their friend. No amount of cajoling, crowd work or compromising worked, so everyone just ate it and got off stage.

When it was finally their friend's time to go on stage, 90% of them had left the room to go for a smoke and missed his set.Now that's comedy.

I hope they all get my cold.

Anyway, Monday rocks around and it's time to wake up and drag myself to the agency for the audition. I arrive to check in and one of the interns tells me I've been given the wrong place; the audition is actually uptown, on 54th. I blink and take a minute. Right before I tell them politely that I was told to come here, she says "OH, wait. That's the other commercial for Cialis. You're Amex, right?"

Yeah. I'm Amex.

She hands me the 2 scripts and tells me to wait in reception 'til I'm called. I look over to the other couch to find my competitor for the role running over his script, which he appears to have received ahead of time. It was marked up with notes and revisions... I would be reading it cold.

The agent's assistant comes out and says, "Okay, who wants to go first?"Before I even had the chance, the other guy gets up and says "I will.""Thanks, Charles. Hey, how was your donkey party last night?" the assistant said.I think I just realised who was getting the part. They're buddies.What the fuck is a Donkey party?

I wait 20 minutes and read through my 2 scripts thoroughly, rehearsing lines, making notes, marking up the lines to see how I could inflect differently to really sell the tag line. Donkey Charles reappears with a grin on his face, the assistant slapping him on the back and laughing at some great crack of his. Probably donkey related.

I go into the studio to audition and prepare to read my 2 scripts.

"Which one do you want to start with?" the young assistant asks." followed by "You know what? Why don't we start with 'Dear Marta'."

"Dear what?" I ask."the "Dear Marta" one." he insists."There is no 'Dear Marta' one." I reply."Oh. I think she gave you the wrong scripts."

Perfect.

He hands me the correct scripts. All 3 of them. All of which are completely new and unfamiliar to me.

I read them, cold.

I blow it.

Perfect.

I leave, wanting whiskey instead of the lemon ginger tea I was sipping like a muppet.

"Well, at least I still have that audition for the Broadway Comedy Club coming up Thursday! That's something to look forward to" I thought to myself.

I work at an agency all day Tuesday and Wednesday before spending my entire night running my 5-minute audition set in preparation for Thursday's audition. I shave of millisecond after millisecond, editing brutally, killing darlings left right and centre; the great darling massacre of 2017.

Finally, Wednesday night, 6 shows later and I've perfected the set and am ready to audition for the great Al Martin to get passed at the Broadway and Greenwich Village Comedy Clubs.

Then I turn on the news.

"I gigantic blizzard is engulfing the North East tomorrow, bringing snowfalls of between 8 and 12 inches. Schools and roads will be closed in the following boroughs..."

Perfect.

I wake to 12 inches of snow and an email telling me the audition has been cancelled. I also got a message from the ad agency I was meant to be working at today, telling me the gig is cancelled. There goes rent this month.

So I get up, try to make coffee but realise I used the last of it yesterday.I trudge through the snow to the bodega to get coffee."Sorry, pal. Our coffee machine is out today. Guy coming to fix it can't get here til tomorrow."

Perfect.

If anyone wants me I'll be in bed, shivering with caffeine withdrawals.